Wednesday, June 06, 2007

YOU be the judge!

My apologies for the dearth of posts lately. The real world caught up with me something fierce this past week. But enough about me -- this post is about YOU! In honor of Father's Day coming up soon, I'm taking nominations for worst and best fictional father, step-father or father figure. Tell me who springs to mind for you, whether they're from film, TV, books or an old Bloom County strip. Need a few examples? Well, you'd have to put Lolita's Humbert Humbert somewhere at the top of Worst list. Maybe add a dash of The X-Files' Bill Mulder or Battlestar Galactica's Bill Adama. On the "best of" side, there's the sweatered-duo of Bill Cosby and Ward Cleaver. Les Miz's Jean Valjean ran around in sewers to save his daughter's drippy boyfriend and Buffy's Giles got hit on the head all the time to protect his slayer, so they might earn a good guy spot.

Post your nominations in the comments section, and we'll see who tops the list when we rank Worst Fathers this Friday and start preparing for Best Fathers next Friday.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Darth Vader. He probably isn't the best father.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Nancy, Fat Charlie's father, in Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, for one of the worst fathers. While he did love his son, he pulled many pranks for the sake of a lark, and even decided to up and die on his son for a bit of rest.

Anonymous said...

Worst dad: George Bluth Sr., of Arrested Development. Yes, he loves his children (except Buster). But, yanno.

Worst dad, I'm going to have to think about...

Shan said...

Just off the top of my head...

Worst Dads (real/fake/father figure):
Christian Shepherd (Lost)
Darth Vader (Star Wars)
Anthony Cooper (Lost)
Phillip Bauer (24)
Jack Torrance (The Shining)
Bull Meechum (The Great Santini)
Noah Cross (Chinatown)
Guy Woodhouse (Rosemary's Baby)
Royal Tenenbaum (The Royal Tenenbaums)

Best Dads (real/fake/father figure):
Rupert Giles (Buffy)
Jack Bristow (Alias)
Keith Mars (Veronica Mars)
Roger Burkle (Angel)
Ben Parker (Spiderman)
Alfred Pennyworth (Batman)
George Bailey (It's a Wonderful Life)
Benjamin Sisko (ST: DS9)
Bob Parr (The Incredibles)
Charles Xavier (The X-Men)

Anonymous said...

Best Dad: Jack Bauer
Why? There are few fathers in this world who when they say "if you touch my daughter I'll kill you" and actually mean it.

Worst Dad: Captain Kirk
Why? Because the man forgot he even had a son with the cute, blonde lab technician he almost married. Either that, or it was a very cruel writers' conspiracy to suddenly drop a son into the mix in ST II...

Anonymous said...

Oh! I agree with Shan in the fact that Ben Sisko is a good father. And on the same note, I think that Captain Picard is a good father figure.

Rebecca said...

Best Father: Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Fighting injustice with good parenting--a great dad!

Ms. Meg said...

Archie Bunker = pretty bad

Uncle Phil from Fresh Prince was okay.

You know who was a good dad, or at least tried? The dad from My So Called Life.

Lucius Malfoy = terrible father

Also, Jimmy Gator from Magnolia is probably one of the worst fathers I can think of.

Anonymous said...

Worst: The King of All Cosmos (Katamari Damacy)

Anonymous said...

ATTICUS! ATTICUS! ATTICUS!

agent57 said...

I'd like to add votes to Giles and Alfred as best, and The King of all Cosmos as worst. I'd also like to nominate Rube from Dead Like Me, but I'm not sure if he'd be the best or worst father figure...

Anonymous said...

Best Dad -- MINE!

Anonymous said...

Best Dad -- Mine, too.

Liz said...

L-D -- I could've sworn your dad was non-fictional. If that's not the case, I have some concerns. :-)

Unknown said...

Worst: Leland Palmer (Twin Peaks)